


Rack of Ribs and Acorn Squash

by amaradangeli



Series: We Made It [8]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cooking, Episode: s04e09 Scorched Earth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaradangeli/pseuds/amaradangeli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first real fight, well, it was a doozy.<br/><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Rack of Ribs and Acorn Squash

**Author's Note:**

> Because this episode just begged for some angst, and because it was right before Beneath the Surface, it just had to be done.
> 
> Artwork by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse

It was a fierce pounding on his door that heralded her arrival. He already had the ribs in the oven. He was ambling his way to the front door when she flung it open.

"Is this how it's going to be now?"

"Carter-" he warned, low in his throat.

"No, not right now, Jack."

"C'mon into the kitchen," he said, resigned. It was a kitchen conversation coming on if he'd ever heard one.

She followed him in, stomping along behind him. Oh she was fired up.

"How could you?"

"How could I  _not_?" he threw back at her. "I'm the one that has to make the tough calls.

"Maybe. But we all have to live with them."

He stopped at the counter, grabbed an acorn squash and tossed it to her with perhaps a little too much force. "You know what to do with that?"

"You know I don't!"

It was easier to fight about the food than it was to fight about the Enkarans. Against his better judgment he pulled a large knife out of a drawer and handed it to her. "Cut it in half."

"You  _ordered_  me to end a species."

"Actually, I just told you to cut a squash in half."

"Damn it, Jack!"

"What the hell do you want from me, Sam?! Everything worked out."

"Luck," she said. "And you set the bomb even though Daniel was aboard the ship!" Her outrage was apparent; then, inexplicably, she settled, smooth like glass and he knew things were about to get worse. "What if it had been me?"

"You know, this is why we were supposed to leave it in the room."

"But we decided to do  _this_  instead."

"Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to have as many perks as I envisioned." He regretted it as soon as he said it. He'd forgotten what it was like to fight with a... whatever she was to him. "Look, Sam, I-"

"I can't believe you just said that."

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"Okay, so... how did you mean it?" she sounded cool and pragmatic. He didn't think that was a good thing.

He decided to try for honesty. Not usually his go-to in a fight with a woman, but he seemed to be trying lots of new things with her. "I just said it. I don't think I meant it at all."

"You don't  _think_ you meant it?"

"Damn it, I didn't mean it!"

"What sort of perks did you envision? We both knew what we were walking into. You're the one who said there couldn't be any more nights like the one on your deck. So what, exactly, did you envision?"

"Would you cut that thing up already?" he asked her, hoping to stall for a little time.

She set it down on the counter and whacked it into two inelegant pieces. "Fine. It's cut. Now. What did you envision?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, me either, but don't you dare think this is any easier for me than it is for you!"

"How would I know? It's not like we ever talk about it except when you're here."

"And that's my fault?"

"It's the way it has to be!" At that point he knew he was past mad and into something far more complicated.

She seemed unhappy with that answer and yet resigned to it. "What am I supposed to do with this thing, now?" she indicated the lopsided squash in front of her.

"Clean out the seeds." He got a dish out of a cabinet and set it on the counter next to her. "Then put it in here, cut side up." From the pantry he got brown sugar and salt and from the fridge he got butter. If they could just focus on dinner for a little while, maybe this thing between them wouldn't be over before it really got started.

He walked her through packing the squash with brown sugar then salting it and putting a pat of butter on top of each half. They covered the dish with wax paper and put it in the microwave. "Start with ten minutes," he told her, "and then we'll see what we've got."

She foraged in his kitchen for a bottle of wine and he got down two glasses. She poured them both a glass of the deep red, but he could see the gears turning in her head. With a glass in her hand she indicated the space between them. "We both knew  _this_  was going to make everything out  _there,"_ she swept her hand in a large arc towards the sky, "harder."

"Which is why we agreed to leave it in the room."

"Except, we didn't really, did we? Agree to leave it in the room? We agreed to leave it here."

"We agreed on both."

"We can't do both!" she reminded him unnecessarily. "So now what?"

"So now we have to decide. Either we're leaving it in the room and having dinner or we're leaving it here and... having dinner," he finished lamely. "But either way, we have to decide."

She was worth it to him, all of it - the wondering, the fear, the fighting. He just hoped he was worth it to her, too. They both had a lot to lose, and they had to be in it together or not at all.

"We're having squash for dinner?" she asked him instead of answering.

"And ribs."

"We should have something green," she decided. Rather unilaterally he thought, but she was already going through his refrigerator unearthing some green beans he'd forgotten he bought. He took them from her and started washing them.

"I'm not sorry I made the order, Sam. But I am sorry it was necessary."

"I'm not sorry you made the decision," she told him, shocking him. "I'm sorry you made it an order."

"You wouldn't have done it if I hadn't."

"Yes," she said, shocking him further. "I would have. I don't always agree with you, but I do respect you. And I know you made a tough call in a bad situation."

"But you were trying to talk me out of it."

"Of course I was!" she hollered at him. "It was a bad fucking situation. There were no wins," she said punctuating her sentence with a slash of her hand. "What did you envision?" she asked him again, quietly.

"I really don't know," he said. "Maybe more of what happened on the porch."

"Some sort of pressure valve," she offered.

"Yeah."

"Because this  _hurts."_

"Yeah."

"I know." She took a sip of wine and looked thoughtful. "I'm sorry I came at you the way I did."

He waved her off. "I get it."

"But it wasn't right. I know you. I know the decision wasn't made lightly. And I know it wasn't personal. And I'd like to think you'd have blown the ship even if I was the one aboard."

"Jesus," he said, not knowing whether or not he'd have made the same decision if that were the case. Which was what scared him about what they're doing.

"We've got to figure out a way to make this work."

"I don't think this is something we can just negotiate."

"Why not?"

"Because it's never going to be that easy. Last time we said we were leaving it in the room and having dinner. But we know that's not how it happened or you wouldn't have stormed in here tonight the way you did."

"So... what?"

"So we just keep trying to make it work, and keep it from becoming a problem."

"You don't think it's already a problem?"

"No, I don't," he said seriously. "You trust me, right?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "I trust you."

"Then let's just..."

"Try," she finished for him. "Okay."

"And please keep in mind that I'm stupid, sometimes, and say things I haven't quite thought through."

"You've got to stop doing that," she told him, with a small smile.

He couldn't help but smile back at her. They managed to keep the peace and finish dinner: rack of ribs, acorn squash, and sauteed green beans. Through dinner they smoothed things out in a way that made them feel good and they talked about making their dinners a more regular, less stress-induced thing between them.

That night, when she left, she let him drop a kiss on the corner of her mouth and he thought that things had probably gotten as bad as they were going to get, at least for a little while, and that he was one lucky son of a bitch that she wasn't the type of woman to hold a grudge.

He was so confident that things were going to get better he put another bottle of the wine she liked on the grocery list. For the next time. Because next time they had dinner it wasn't going to be because things had gotten to be too much, it was going to be because they'd decided not to leave it in the room but to leave it in his house. And that was a much better plan.


End file.
